Page 45 of Meet Cute the Virgin

“What is it?” A sense of unease begins creeping in. My shit doesn’t glitch. Not since the fifth grade.

“Just a delivery; these girls get shit every day.”

I check the tracking app. Lily’s dot is moving fast and toward town.

“Not a fucking delivery.”

Killian’s head snaps up. I hold out my phone. His jaw tightens as he swipes through his own phone. I watch as he pulls up his own tracker. Guess we have the same thought.

We’re already moving, running back to the main house. Killian grabs keys off a hook as we enter the garage.

“They’re in town,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat of Killian’s SUV. “The ice cream shop.”

I pull up the security feeds on my phone, scrubbing backward through the time stamps. Side door. Garage bay. The convertible left twenty-two minutes ago.

“You hacked my security cameras?” Killian grits out.

“Can we talk about that later?”

He grunts, picking up speed. We hit the road that leads to town doing eighty. I’m watching the dot on my screen when Lily suddenly starts moving faster and cutting through an alley too narrow for a car. It’s erratic. She’s running. Which means someone is chasing them. My blood runs cold. Adrenaline begins coursing through my veins or it could be fear.

“Something’s wrong.” I glance over to him. “They’re running.”

Killian goes eerily quiet, and I pull up the street cameras, hacking through the town’s traffic system in seconds. I find the footage and rewind time. I watch them park and get out of the car, talking and laughing. I scan the area all around them.

I take a deep breath to keep myself under control as I continue reviewing the footage. I watch as the girls head back toward the car, but they suddenly stop and turn, moving away from it.

That’s when I see it: a black sedan with doors opening.

“There are two of them,” I report. “Following on foot.”

“Armed?”

“I can’t tell. Let me see if there’s a better angle.” I switch feeds, tracking them block by block. All the air leaves my body. The two men aren’t trying to hide; they are following them now, and the girls know.

“Shit,” I get out. “The alley behind the hardware store. They’re cornered.”

Killian takes a turn sharp enough to squeal the tires. “Play?”

I calculate distances, speed, and the maze of small-town streets. “We have to go on foot.” A vehicle can’t fit through the alleyway.

We abandon the SUV three blocks over, moving on foot. Killian already has a gun in his hand. I’ve got my knife, the one I keep in my boot. We don’t speak. We don’t need to. We have worked jobs together before.

Normally he’s boots on the ground, and I’m in a control center of some kind close by. That wasn’t always the case. A few times I had to go in.

We hear them before we see them. Lily’s voice is high, filled with words that would make a sailor blush. She and Teddy are bickering about directions.

Then I hear the heavier footsteps of the two men closing in on them. Then the sound of a scuffle.

We round the corner to find Teddy backed against a wall, Lily in front of her wielding a broken piece of lumber, a look of determination on her face. One of the two men already has a gun out, but it’s at his side. The second man is closing in from the left, knife in hand, grinning like this is fun for him. Oh, it’s going to be fun for Killian and me.

Lily sees me first. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t lower the lumber. Smart girl. The gunman starts to turn toward the sound of our footsteps.

I don’t think; I just move. All I care about is keeping her safe, no matter the cost.

The knife in my hand leaves my fingers before I make the decision to throw. It catches the gunman in the shoulder. It’s not lethal, but his arm drops, and the gun hits the pavement and skids. He lets out a scream. I’m already on him, punching himin his kidney, shocking his system. I wrench his arm behind his back until I feel a pop. He goes down hard. Too bad—this is just the beginning of what I plan on doing to him.

Killian passes me in a blur; his gun connects with the side of the other man’s skull with a crack that echoes off the brick. The man crumples to the ground.